CHERRY POINT — It truly was a super Sunday for Cody Ryan and Mary Kate Sheehan, and football had nothing to do with it.

Ryan, a lance corporal with Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 252, arrived home at Cherry Point after a nearly seven-month deployment to the Middle East and then used the occasion to propose to the girl he has known almost all his life.

“I’ve been crushing on her since we were about 10 years old,” Ryan said of Sheehan.

Sheehan had traveled from the couple’s hometown of Boston to be at Cherry Point when her boyfriend of about a year arrived home.

“I didn’t think he’d do it here,” she said of the proposal. “I knew he was going to ask me, but I didn’t think it would be here. It was shocking.

“It happened so fast. I don’t know how he pulled it off. I don’t even know what to say. I’m just so happy.”

Ryan said he began thinking about using his arrival home to propose to Sheehan about the time he left on the deployment back in July.

“It actually worked out liked I had planned it,” he said. “That never happens.”

Ryan serves as a safety and survival mechanic on the KC-130 refuelers. Nearly seven months in a desert environment made him miss the simple things.

“I missed the trees,” he said. “It’s weird the things you miss that you wouldn’t think you’d miss.”

About 40 Marines with the squadron arrived home just about two hours before the start of the Super Bowl, but few cared about Sunday’s big game between the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos.

Kylie Baez welcomed home her husband, Cpl. Michael Baez, from his first deployment. The couple had been married for about a month when he deployed.

“I got to talk to him a lot and that was good,” she said of the deployment. “It wasn’t too bad. For the first deployment, it went really well.”

Still, she was thrilled to see him in person.

“I’m really excited,” she said. “I don’t know what to do with myself.”

Hospital Corpsman Second Class Clayton Canaan said the journey home was a long one.

“It’s awesome, but exhausting,” he said.

He left when his daughter, Blakely, was about seven months old. He arrived home to his wife Angela and a daughter now 14 months old wearing a “Daddy’s girl” shirt and a matching tutu. Though he was able to see his daughter via computer while deployed, holding her on Sunday proved emotional.